Norman Reedus depressed after Andrew Lincoln left The Walking Dead

Norman Reedus was so heartbroken when his pal Andrew Lincoln quit The Walking Dead he insisted on leaving the British actor’s fake blood-stained chair in his trailer.

The two old friends had lunch together in Norman’s trailer every day and discussed their scenes, and the actor admits the first day he had to dine alone was one of the saddest of his life.

“I remember the day he left – I got my lunch, I went back in my trailer and it was just so depressing (that he wasn’t there),” Reedus tells ABC News show Popcorn. “The chair that he always sat on, he had left sort of an imprint of his body in (fake) blood on it; the shroud of Rick Grimes.

“They came in to clean it up and I’m like, ‘Leave it there!’ I understood why he left. He lives in England. He’s got two little kids. He wasn’t seeing his kids as much as he would like. For him, I think his wife was like, ‘It’s time. You’ve been there a long time’.

“I didn’t agree with it but I also understood it.”

Lincoln bowed out as Rick Grimes on The Walking Dead five episodes into season nine, making Reedus and Melissa McBride the longest-running cast members. Both first appeared in the third episode of season one.